


Arithmetic Bugs

by absolutelyCancerous (cal1brations)



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Domestic, F/M, Partnership, lice, what should I even tag this as um?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-05
Updated: 2013-03-05
Packaged: 2017-12-04 10:21:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cal1brations/pseuds/absolutelyCancerous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soul gives up his dignity when he sighs out, “I’m pretty sure it’s lice.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arithmetic Bugs

She hates everyone and everything when she feels it.

Because camping out in the middle of goddamn nowhere was one of the very best, and very well known, places to pick up the dreaded little bastards. The ones that nestle in sheets of hair, bite and burrow, spread like wildfire from person to person.

Soul gives up his dignity when he sighs out, “I’m pretty sure it’s lice.”

“It’s not.”

“Are you kidding me? _Nothing_ itches this much!”

“Sunburns can.”

“ _Maka_. It’s _lice_.”

Mother of **fuck** , her head itches.

 But, demanding to stick to her guns, the meister only tucks her feet up under her on the couch, pretending to be completely and utterly absorbed in the book in her hands, although she hasn’t read more than twelve words on the page in actuality; she’s just been gritting her teeth, ignoring Soul’s sudden burst of rationality and the spine-jolting itch consuming her scalp.

She hears her partner scrape up his keys and slip on his jacket, striding to the front door with a determined gait. “Be as stubborn as you want,” he mumbles, scooping up his goggles from their cozy place on the side table. “ _I’m_ not putting up with this anymore.”

In any other circumstance, Maka might feel guilty and maybe worried, but once she hears the front door lock behind him, she’s throwing her book onto the floor and, oh yeah, that’s it, begins scratching her hair. Elastic hair ties rest around each of her wrists as she sighs in aggravation; her fingernails don’t do much of _anything_ to soothe the intense burn of **itch** on her skull. She wonders how long Soul will be, if he’s actually going to get some of that anti-lice shampoo treatment or if he’s only going out to fume in peace, away from her.

She silently begs for it to be the former option.

Minutes inch (itch) by, and after a good half-hour, Maka is ready to snatch up a pair of scissors and begin chopping off her hair. She’s deciding how to go about such a task—if she should tie her hair up in pigtails and hack it off that way or otherwise—when the front door unlocks, a holy noise that makes the blonde perk up like a loyal pet.

Soul looks like he got hit by a train. He drops a plastic bag on the kitchen table, instantly shoving his hands inside and digging around until he pulls out a box and begins to scrutinize the directions on the back.

Idly, he alerts her of, “That was the last of my allowance this week—you’re responsible for food until Sunday.”

To be brutally honest, Maka couldn’t give less of a fuck; she just wants her scalp to stop tingling.

“What’d you get?”

“Chemicals.”

“Is there enough for both of us?”

Soul shoots her a look. “You don’t have lice, remember?”

Maka gapes. Flips her shit (which was already well on its way to be flipped) and resists the very strong urge to scream bloody murder at him; she is absolutely **fuming** when he smiles that disgustingly shit-eating grin, wiggles the box at her teasingly and chimes, “There’s enough, don’t get your panties in a twist.”

Soul is already opening the box, and the sound of clattering as he dumps the contents of the box (that’s nearly the size of a goddamn toaster) out on the counter is more than enough to rouse Maka from her perch on the couch and stand awkwardly in the kitchen with him, attempting to see what their treatment involves.

Her weapon, the obnoxious gentleman he is, tugs out a chair for her in front of the sink. “We can do yours, first.”

And it’s not like Maka has any will _whatsoever_ to object to him fixing the horrible, burning itch on her scalp. So she takes her seat, watching Soul unfold the massive pamphlet of instructions (not without scratching the back of his neck and groaning in discomfort).

“So, I guess this goes in with dry hair—do you want something for your shir--… _my_ shirt?”

Caught! Maka hums shyly, feels a little greedy when Soul tucks a dishtowel around her shoulders; not quite enough to salvage his shirt in a life-or-death situation, but enough to keep the mass of her hair away from her neck, which is always good when you’re pouring poison on your head.

Which, good lord, she might pass out from the smell of the stuff! It’s a little comforting (in a disturbing way) when Soul gives a few overwhelmed hacks into his elbow before actually pouring the stuff into his hands—and action Maka isn’t quite sure about.

“Hold your hair up.”

She complies, makes alien noises when Soul leans close and starts rubbing chemicals into her hair, around her ears and all along the base of her neck, making sure to drag any excess shampoo up into the actual body of her limp hair. He asks her where she feels like ripping her head open the most, and he rubs the chemicals in there, too. Then, thinking better of his meister and her stubbornness, decides to take the time to drench her entire hair in the bug-killing mixture, motioning her to sit up while he rinses off his hands.

“You’ve gotta wait ten minutes before you can wash that out,” Soul explains, taking the dishtowel from her shoulders to wipe his hands. “So you do mine, and then we’ll comb out yours.”

Ten minutes is a long damn time.

But, Maka complies and they switch spots, although Soul simply takes off his shirt instead of bothering with a towel. His hair is, thankfully, much shorter than hers, but also much more _thick_ , and Maka nearly breaks her fingers trying to dug them through obnoxiously-dense Soul hair, but she manages with no injury to her person.

Both of them sit around in the kitchen while waiting for Maka’s full ten minutes to pass, Maka sitting on the counter and Soul resting his face on the cool surface.

“If these fumes don’t kill us, scratching our heads open will. How lame.”

Maka snorts in agreement. “I’ve never had lice, not once! Figures I’d get it the one time we get stuck rolling around in the woods.”

“Better than ticks.”

“Not by much, though.”

Soul calls time on her poison-bath after that, scanning the directions once more while Maka takes a seat with her back towards the kitchen sink. Making sure he’s not going to mess, he turns on the faucet, and sighs as he waits for the warm water.

“This is tedious,” Maka mumbles, and Soul spits out a dry laugh.

“This isn’t even the bad part!” He tilts her head back into the basin of the sink to start washing out her hair. “There’s still _combing the little bastards out_.”

Horror chews up the small bit of hope hiding in Maka like a cheek-full of tobacco.

When her hair is soaked and more or less clean of the toxic shampoo, Soul awkwardly wrings it out, which earns a displeased whine or two because, “Soul—ouch— _you’re pulling my hair!_ ”

A decision is made to wash out Soul’s hair as well, only because neither weapon nor meister would like to find out what happens if you leave the poison-esque shampoo in for too long. Maka does it for him, after a struggle and lots of “I can do it myself!s” yelled between the two, but she manages to pin him down with a knobby knee and wash out paper-white hair under the tap.

After such is all said and done, the pair perch on the edge of Maka’s bed, since the lamp on her desk is the only thing bright enough to see the disgusting little creatures by. Maka is first to be deloused, sitting on her desk chair shoved up against the side of the bed while Soul perches on her mattress, combing through her hair with an impossibly-tiny comb.

It takes a while, to say the least.

“Is it bad?”

“It’s _disgusting_.” Soul corrects, before amending, “The situation. Not your hair--…kind of your hair, I guess.”

She’d normally crack a book on his skull, but since he’s spent the past (almost) two hours picking through her poor hair and probably learning more about her scalp than she’s even aware of herself, she lets his stupid mouth slide. That and the fact she doesn’t want to get up again to _retrieve_ said book and then get situated once more—she’s already made the mistake of getting  up to go to the bathroom once, and Soul took nearly ten minutes to find his place in her mess of hair again.

Another half an hour and Maka’s done, free! From the chair, however, for she switches places with her partner, groaning hen he slaps the stupid comb into her hand.

“Don’t do a shit job, or you’ll just have to do it again.”

She cuffs him on the ear with a scowl. “I’m not _stupid_ , Soul. Shut up and hold still.”

And she tugs and pulls and nearly _screams_ when she can actually see the little eggs on the comb when she moves to rinse it off after every couple brushes through his hair. The process is slow-going, and there’s a point where Soul keeps dozing off, only to jerk awake when Maka tries to yank the little comb through his hair and bitch at her roughness.

Such, the too-tiny combs, the poison shampoo soaks, and the many complaints from both parties, lasts the painful, never-ending duration of about a week.

However, upon actually returning to class, with hair that smells like a chemical spill and scalps that no long require incessant scratching, both are handed along with the rest of the class a sheet of paper entailing the fact that yes, a partner pair happened to contract the little bugs and that everyone should take strides to make sure they excuse themselves from classes if they too have the insects—for, “We don’t need partners in battle who can’t focus on the fight!”

Maka tries to hide her face in a book when she can feel her classmates staring at her, hear their mumbles and whispers about “weren’t they just absent for a long time? Pretty suspicious…”

Soul slams his face into his arms, pulling his coat all the way over his head in the sacred art of the Disappearing Act.


End file.
